Saint Louis University is vigorously defending a research partnership with a Chinese scientist whose work on a study that intentionally infected AIDS patients with malaria was roundly condemned by public health experts.

…”These experiments would never be permitted in the U.S. and other countries because they violate laws protecting the rights of humans used in medical research,” (Peter Heimlich) said, referring to a 2003 internal inquiry by the University of California-Los Angeles after one of its scientists was linked to Heimlich’s work abroad. “When I wrote to Father Biondi, I assumed SLU was unaware of Dr. Chen’s malariotherapy history and that the school would be concerned. When I received Dr. Tait’s letter, I was surprised to learn that the university had no interest.”

University spokeswoman Nancy Solomon declined an Associated Press request to interview Tait and the two university researchers who oversee its global health research center, a pair of former Pfizer Inc. drug discovery scientists. Both Chen and the Chinese research center — the equivalent of the National Science Foundation in this country – did not immediately respond to interview requests Wednesday.

9/9/13: St. Louis University Under Fire for Work with Doctor Who Infected AIDS Patients with Malaria by Sam Levin, Riverfront Times: http://bit.ly/1aYhAM3

With specific citations, (Peter) Heimlich writes in an e-mail to Daily RFT:

The “malariotherapy” experiments in China, conducted for over a decade by Dr. Chen in conjunction with Cincinnati’s Heimlich Institute, have been called “atrocities” by the World Health Organization. Medical experts have condemned the work as “charlatanism of the highest order.” Research subjects included prisoners who were controlled by hired guards. In one case, a woman with full-blown AIDS, suffering from pneumonia and hooked up to oxygen, was infected with malaria.

…SLU’s school of medicine was awarded a $566,640 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, to “identify novel antimalarial drug targets and compound classes that kill the parasitic microorganism that causes malaria, which afflicts more than one billion people and kills about 1 million annually.” A spokeswoman confirms to Daily RFT that this grant is part of the GIBH project.

“Why are U.S. tax dollars funding research by a doctor responsible for conducting what a World Health Organization report called medical ‘atrocities?’” (Peter) Heimlich says in an e-mail to Daily RFT regarding the NIH grant.

(Dr. Heimlich’s) experiments – which seek to destroy HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, by inducing high malarial fevers- have been criticized by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration and condemned by other health professionals and human rights advocates as a medical “atrocity.”

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